Police Commissioner doesn’t get force needs

Posted by Stuart Nash on February 10, 2016

The Police Commissioner has let down the public and his own force by insisting the police have what they need despite it taking a year to solve a burglary and overwhelming number of officers saying they are under-resourced, says Labour’s Police spokesman Stuart Nash.

“At select committee today the Police Commissioner said he believed the police are sufficiently resourced. He clearly isn’t listening to the public or his force.

“In the Police Association’s biennial member survey, 74 per cent of police are dissatisfied with the number of frontline police staff in their district, 86 per cent of members believe frontline police are under-resourced and 27 per cent of police believe there is a risk of service failure on the front line because of recent cuts or efficiencies.

“Meanwhile it takes a year to solve the 12 per cent of burglaries that get resolved and sexual assault resolution rate is around 45 per cent. How can the Commissioner say the police are properly funded?

“Instead of pretending the police are doing well the Commissioner and the new Minister need to sit down and come up with a funding solution that will allow the police to be adequately resourced to solve crime, as well as undertake computer system upgrades and implement community programmes and other prevention initiatives.

“The Commissioner refused to either confirm or deny that he had held, or will hold, conversations with the Minister regarding increases in funding in budget 2016. I hope like hell he has been, because it should be his number one priority,” said Stuart Nash.